This article on the evolution of economic and monetary policy in Belgium, which turned the "sick man of Europe" into one of the stronger European economies and allowed it to enter into EMU, stresses the role of the monetary authorities as a stabilising force in Belgium. It gives a detailed analysis of how these changes have allowed Belgium to regain the confidence of both monetary authorities and international investors after the devaluation of 1982. The policy responses to the oil shock (...) at the beginning of the seventies broke with the policy mix which had until then been practised. Both the wage formation process andf iscal policy clearly spiralled out of control, the chiefresult of which was a drastic loss in international competitiveness. As a consequence, the current account showed a large deficit, the traditional level at which public deficit had stood rose dramatically, unemployment exploded and the financial structure of most corporations became fragile.A drastic realignment of economic policy started with the devaluation of the Belgian franc in 1982. This devaluation was accompanied by a series of measures aimed at preventing the inflationary pressures from triggering further devaluations, and hence at restoring credibility. These measures included restrictive fiscal policies and real wage cuts. By 1987 this recovery policy had successfully restored Belgian competitiveness, reduced the government deficit and restored the balance ofpayments equilibrium. Although public policies became less restrictive during the period 1988-1993, the central bank continued to gain international credibility. Significant stepsin this process were the abolition of the dual exchange rate system, the decision to peg the Belgian franc to the most stable currency in the ERM and the reform of the money markets in Belgium. The latter in particular helped to increase the central bank's independence, since this reform implied total control by the central bank over short term interest rates, it reduced significantly the automatic credit lines of the fiscal authorities with the central bank and it stipulated that revaluations of gold reserves should no langer be used to finance government budget deficits. By 1992 international credibility had been restored to such a degree that the Belgian franc became a strong currency during the 1992 crisis, obliging the central bank to come to the rescue of the weaker currencies under attack in September 1992 with a speculative inflow of capital of about 200 billion BEF. However this restored credibility continued to be fragile, as became evident during the 1993 exchange rate crisis when the Belgian franc was vigorously attacked by international speculation.The insufficient alignment of public and monetary policies proved to be at the heart of the financial problems of the 1993 crises. The Belgian government relaunched its policies of budgetary restriction and wage moderation, brought together in what was called the 'Global Plan'. This realignment of public policies to monetary policy swiftly restored the credibility of the Belgian franc, so that as early as January 1994 the Belgian franc converged to its central parity with an interest differential vis-à-vis the German mark of only about 2 %. This differential declined progressively. Indeed the global plan restored the confidence of the investors in Belgian economic policy. Financial markets now fully believed in the entry of Belgium into EMU and from then on no major difficulties were to arise. (shrink)

Betrifft die Handschrift Cod. 579 der Burgerbibliothek Bern.

The objective of this article is to contribute to an understanding of Hannah Arendt’s special place in present-day political theory by means of a contrast between her Origins of Totalitarianism and four important political science studies of National Socialism and totalitarianism, three written by authors who shared the status of involuntary emigrant with Arendt, that are offered as constituting the original context of her work. A critical appreciation of the seminal works by Ernst Fraenkel, Franz L. Neumann, Sigmund Neumann, and (...) Carl Joachim Friedrich and Zbigniew Brezinski, with special emphasis on questions of method, opens the way to a reconsideration of the distinctly philosophical character of Arendt’s work, and its shocking challenges to the scientific orientations of political science. (shrink)

To discuss under this tide the early writings of authors, who a few years later would be numbered among the members of the exiled Institute for Social Research, is a kind of provocation. The political culture of the Weimar Republic was initially re-appraised in West Germany primarily in light of totalitarian theoretical principles. Later this picture changed to the extent that research abandoned the right-left equation. Should this progress, in view of a new wave of nostalgia, be undone? Can anything (...) other than a scandal result if one considers the fact that prominent representatives of the leftist intelligentsia — the jurist Fritz Neumann, the political scientist Otto Kirchheimer, and the philosopher Herbert Marcuse — had been students of even more well-known representatives of the academic right? (shrink)

In all major Western countries except France and Spain, conservative governments have come to power by proposing policies opposed to the interests of the majority of the people. This reversal challenges democratic legitimation processes since democratic consensus today is used to justify cutting back the welfare state, to reduce real income to strengthen inner and external security forces instead of developing public services. Apparantly, most people accept this reversal — at least insofar as electoral results reveal what people want. The (...) implementation of last decade's neo-conservative ideologies is a reaction to the international economic crisis. Neo-conservative politics attempts to manage an economic crisis which even a retired Realpolitiker like Helmut Schmidt recently compared to the situation of the Thirties. (shrink)

This article identifies the structural and conceptual aspects of a visual construction often used in advertisements to establish a metaphoric or associative relation, that is, symmetric object alignment (SOA). It offers an account of the formal ingredients of SOA, which fall into two groups: object-constitutive factors (like size, shape, and color) and object-depictment factors (like perspective, orientation, and distance from viewing point). Both factors allow us to treat SOA as a visual rhetorical scheme. We also discuss how SOA relates to (...) conceptual structure, metaphoric or otherwise. Four types of relations are distinguished, based on the way in which perceptual and conceptual characteristics interact. Finally, we discuss the way in which these characteristics relate to the processing of such visual messages. One depictment factor will be focused on in particular: one-to-one versus one-to-many alignments. An attempt is made to connect these 2 patterns to the much-discussed topic in verbal metaphor theory, object comparison versus categorization. (shrink)

“You argue like Carl Schmitt!” This charge has long been considered slanderous within German leftist circles and could have resulted in political ostracism. Today things are somewhat different, but not too much. When Ellen Kennedy first insisted on Schmitt's influence on the Frankfurt School a couple of years ago in Ludwigsburg, she may not have been aware of die problem Schmitt poses in Germany, and thus may have been taken aback by the defensive reactions of, among others, Habermas. Be that (...) as it may, Kennedy should by now know better than to reiterate the thesis. Despite many qualifications, her argument remains that Schmitt's authoritarian political philosophy in the Weimar Republic was implicitly or explicitly inherited by the Frankfurt School. (shrink)

The present commentary emphasizes that the acquisition of fear always involves complex changes in several quasi-independent response systems. Stimulus-specific electrodermal response differentiation as well as the bias to overestimate the belongingness of certain stimulus pairs mainly indicates cognitive processes of selective orienting and attention. Emotion, however, also involves the activation of subcortical motivational circuits. Why certain stimuli acquire rapid access to these basic motivational systems is not explained by the expectancy bias model.

Apoptosis has become a major research area in the biomedical sciences. As there are more than 13,000 papers published annually on the topic, it is impossible to keep track on all developments in the area. The individual aspects of molecular control of apoptosis are well reviewed, but more general, introductory recent reviews into the field are lacking. This review aims to give a brief overview of the field, providing an introduction into the literature for students and newcomers; as it is (...) written for the un‐initiated, wherever possible, review articles will be cited rather than original papers. BioEssays 25:888–896, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

It is necessary to consider medieval Western Neoplatonism as a current of thought inserted in a wide cultural atmosphere where liturgical, theological, aesthetic, and artistic patterns play an important role as elements of a common historical past. In this article the author argues to what extent Neoplatonic concepts (Epiphany, Negative Theology, Theology of Light and Metaphor of Light) derived from Johannes Scotus Eriugena, translator of the Corpus Areopagiticum into latin, relate to the Iconography of Crist-Light or Maiestas domini in a (...) mandorle of light. Writings of various thinkers, paintings from the 12th century and medieval epigraphy are taken as primary sources in order to understand the relationship between Neoplatonism and Iconography in the European Middle Ages. (shrink)